WSJ Op-Ed: Critics Try to Smear Trump’s Election Integrity Commission

Posted on August 3rd, 2017

It’s one thing to attack a proposed policy. It’s another thing to attack someone for simply asking a question. Yet that’s exactly what President Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is facing from the New York Times, Washington Post, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and others. Since the president signed an executive order creating the commission in May, these organizations have attacked members of the commission personally, including the authors of this article.

The reprehensible (and false) claim that we are engaged in voter suppression is a scare tactic, pure and simple. Ours is an advisory commission. It has no federal authority or power of any kind. It can’t tell the states, local governments or even the executive branch of the federal government what to do in the administration of elections.

Further, the commission’s request for publicly available information from the states is not some nefarious plot. This basic information about the voter registration process is necessary for the commission’s work. Many states have already given or sold the same information to multiple private vendors.